The AYRN is a Pan-African research organisation founded by African young academics and researchers in Abidjan in 2010 and which is being coordinated from Abidjan, Bamako, Dakar, Nairobi and Kinshasa. The general constitutive assembly will be held soon to officially launch the organisation. Our headquarters will soon be established and we will have a website up soon. The AYRN was born in the heart of the Ivory Coast crisis bearing the symbol of the determination of young African intellectuals to face the challenge of building Africa. For more information on the AYRN, also write to contacts listed in this call. AYRN is launching a call for papers on the theme “Africa and Development: assessment and challenges for African youth” for a collection of papers on the theme to be published in book form by l’Harmattan. Contributions are welcome from young academics, young researchers, young experts from governmental and non-governmental development organisations and civil society. The book will be launched in 2012. Paper proposals should reflect a sound relevance to the general theme of the book and address any of the following subthemes:

Approaches, ideologies, discourses on development

The aim is to critically interrogate discourses, theoretical approaches, and ideologies (established, recent, and dead ones) of development in Africa and locate political and intellectual anachronisms, linkages and innovations on development. Is it possible to find a new alternative concept without falling in the trap of the current normative and conceptual gridlock?

Democratisation and development

The beginning of the 21st century in Africa has been marked by an important upsurge of violence as one of the main political idioms, testifying to the unfinished character of democratization and to the vigor of the mobilisation that often characterised the latter. The stakes of such violent modes of access and being in the public sphere as well as the ways in which they are legitimised merit a closer look. The same can be said about the identitary constructions of social and economic inclusion and exclusion, which should be first of all related to political and geostrategic calculus. How do such identitary constructions of groups and their interest influence social and political mobilisation and the access or not to resources and circuits of accumulation and production? We also welcome original and critical reflections on social movements; how do social movements redefine the relationship between democratization and development?

Regional integration and development

Instead of refreshing nostalgic and militant analyses, contributors are invited to critically consider the securitisation of the development agenda and discourses and how they impact on the practices of development throughout the continent. To what extent have African regional organisations been able to carry the development agenda? Do they still have the capacity to produce imaginaries, norms, practical benchmarks and viable consensus around development in the continent? Instead of merely containing foreign intellectual and expert incursions, can they put an end to them and, if need be, eliminate the macro-political processes that appear to be detrimental to their member states and peoples?

‘New global politics’ and development

Less than a novelty, new global politics rather evokes the complexity that characterises the international order and the way in which continuities and breaks with the past redefine the relationship between Africa and the various international actors. Furthermore, concern is about how resources and modalities of African development entail a revision of the international political and economic balances as well as a challenge to the intra-continental political stability. Contributors are expected to review and assess the theoretical and conceptual linkages between global politics and African development, and characterise the practical implications of these on various issues: the effects of disciplinary and regulatory procedures of the international political and economic order on African development, especially as they may be of relevance to the viability of the global and continental frameworks of the commercial management and exploitation of African resources.

Uncertainties, marginalisations and development

This subtheme is an occasion for contributors to think about the challenges and prospects of development from the perspective of relationships between states and societies, elites and masses, social seniors and juniors, gender relationships, and ethnic minorities and majorities, etc. In other words, concern is about the theoretical and conceptual limitations in naming the popular dynamics of “resistance” and “survival”, towards a better and refreshed or renewed understanding of current and upcoming uncertainties, of processes of marginalization and innovation, especially when sound development alternatives are hard to find.

National public policies and development

The concern here is about the challenges that paradoxically emerged out from ancient and new achievements in the field of development in Africa, though scant they may have been. Account should be taken of the related political stakes such as access to new representative and governmental roles in the new governance and developmental spaces which the megalopolis and secondary urban centers have become. The interface between political mobilisation and citizen participation on the one hand, and public policies on the other should attract much attention from contributors. The issue of social and economic rights through the lenses of the imbalances between urban and rural governance and developmental spaces finds thus a peculiar importance. The same can be said about the link between urbanization, environment and settlements.

Every paper proposal must consist of a two-pages document containing:

The title of the paper and the subtheme with which it deals;

The institutional affiliation and a brief biography of the author and an concise indication of his interest for the subtheme;

An abstract of the proposal (in English or in French) of 300 words maximum, including keywords (5 words, max.)

Proposals should be sent before 30 October 2011. The scientific committee will preselect a set of most critical and relevant proposals and send information to their authors on 30 November 2011. Preselected authors should then send their final papers to the editing board before 1 March 2012.